The Paying Guests(59)

They saw very little of each other over the week-end, and when they met on the Monday they made no mention of the confidences they had exchanged in Frances’s bedroom, nor of the electric but ambiguous way in which they had parted. They spoke of nothing much at all – of domestic matters, laundry bills. But for the rest of that day the rumble of the treadle sewing-machine could be heard across the house; and the following morning, while Frances was stripping the sheets from her bed, Lilian appeared at her door.

‘I have your frock for you, Frances,’ she said shyly.

‘My frock?’

‘For Saturday night. For Netta’s party. Had you forgotten?’

Frances hadn’t forgotten. But the trying-on of the dress, the hair-cutting – that all seemed to belong to a distant, less complicated time. She left the bed and moved to the doorway as Lilian held the frock up on its hanger; then she gaped in amazement. The gown was transformed. Lilian had made it fashionably loose and low-waisted. She had washed it and pressed it and removed all trace of must. But she’d also replaced the frock’s worn leather lacings with silvery velvet ribbons, and she had faced the collar and the lowest tier of the skirt with a satiny fabric to match.

Frances lifted one of its cuffs. ‘It’s lovely.’

‘Do you mean it?’

‘I hate to think how long it must have taken you.’

‘It didn’t take any time at all. And I found a bag that goes with it – here.’ It was an evening bag, grey plush. ‘And this hat, too. What do you think?’ The hat was pink with a wide brim. ‘The crown’s quite soft, so it won’t spoil your hair. I thought I could wave you again – shall I?’

Frances turned the hat in her hands, then stood at the glass to try it. The colour suited her; the style was flattering. When she lifted it off it left a trace of Lilian’s scent behind. Carefully setting it down on her chest of drawers, she said, ‘I thought you must have changed your mind about the party. You haven’t mentioned it in so long, and I’ve rather had the idea – Are you sure you’d still like me to come?’

‘Don’t you want to come?’

‘Yes, I’d like to. But how about Leonard? Won’t he mind your going with me instead of with him?’

Lilian coloured, but tilted up her chin. ‘Why should he mind? He’s got his assurance thing to think about. And he’ll be glad to escape my family. It’ll only be family – you know that, don’t you? And Netta’s house – it isn’t very grand. Perhaps you’ll hate it.’

‘I won’t hate it.’

‘I won’t a bit blame you if you do.’

‘I’m sure I won’t hate it, Lilian,’ said Frances. I won’t hate it, she meant, if I’m with you. A couple of weeks before, she might have said the words aloud. A couple of weeks before, Lilian might have dipped her head and absorbed them as another piece of funny chivalry. She couldn’t have said them now, not for fifty pounds; not for five hundred.

But perhaps Lilian heard them anyhow. Her bravado seemed to fail her. She hooked the frock on its hanger to the back of the door, and after a brief, uneasy silence she returned to her own room.



The uneasiness continued as the week wore on. With the tugging of that stake from Frances’s heart some sort of potential had been released, some physical charge made possible. Catching one another’s eye through an open doorway could set them both blushing. If they had to pass on the stairs they seemed to be twice their natural size, all hands and hips and bosoms. When they stopped to chat they were as awkward with each other as if they both had a touch of the jitters. No sooner had they parted, however, than they seemed to meet again. It was as if a thread were fixed between them, continually drawing them back together.

And there was another sort of thread, tugging them towards that party. The event had acquired an unlikely promise, an improbable allure. Frances could not stop thinking about it; and yet, when she spoke about it to others, she became like a hopeless liar, delivering an untruth with a yawn. To Christina, for example, she made a great joke of it. Fun and games with Lil’s relations! Would there be Pin the Tail on the Donkey and Blind Man’s Buff? With her mother she was casual. Well, it wasn’t far to go. It had been kind of Lilian to ask her; she couldn’t very well have said no. And with Leonard —

But Leonard beat her to it. He looked at her in disbelief. ‘Have you any idea what you’ve let yourself in for? It’ll be all tinkers and Sinn Féiners, you know. The O’Flanagans, the O’Hooligans… But I’m glad you’re going, to be honest. You can keep an eye on Lily for me. Some of those hot-eyed Irish cousins of hers – I wouldn’t trust them further than I could throw them!’

He was half serious, Frances realised. Mumbling a reply, she turned away before he could spot how ghastly her smile was.

That was on the Thursday evening. The Friday dawned very fair. And the Saturday, the day of the party, was warm even at five in the morning: she awoke with the light, and stole downstairs, and drank her tea in the garden. She spent the morning doing housework – doing it extra carefully, aware of a powerful temptation not to do it at all. She cooked an elaborate lunch, with a fruit tart for dessert, and made a point of being nice to her mother, attentive and chatty, prolonging the meal.

But when the clearing-away was done she went upstairs, to sit again in the little kitchen while Lilian trimmed and waved her hair: the procedure was as excruciating as it had been the first time, but in a completely different way. Lilian was clumsy with the iron; one of the waves would not sit right. She had to wet it and re-do it, her face inches from Frances’s. They both seemed to be holding their breath. Frances kept her gaze fixed on a spot on the wall, a sliver of bare paper that had got missed by the varnish.